Theology, Pediatrics, and Everyday Life

By Chris Hanson

How can a primary care pediatrician find consistency when an omnipotent view of God offers insufficient answers to everyday problems?

People who think about their spiritual lives sometimes struggle to align their everyday experiences with the ideas they have been given about God. Viewing God as all-powerful doesn’t fit with my experience as a pediatrician. The omnipotent view of God limits how I interact with my diverse group of patients through inclusive and exclusive structures. This view of God doesn’t seem loving when I see children and families suffer. It also doesn’t give an example of healthy parenting consistent with current psychological understanding.

In his book, The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence, Thomas Jay Oord challenges the idea that God has all the power, can do anything, or can control others. He presents the idea that God is amipotent, meaning God’s power is love intentionally cooperating with others toward overall well-being. My experience aligns with the amipotent God.

I have cared for thousands of patients and their families in almost thirty years of pediatric practice. Some are like me: white, southern, Christian, cis-gendered, heterosexual males. Most are different in at least one of those categories. They celebrate diverse religious holidays, were born in various cities, and go by different pronouns. They smell pleasing, neutral, or challenging. Irrespective of these details, the amipotent God loves them all and calls me to do the same. The omnipotent God says, “Not so fast! Love is more than that.”

When we attribute omnipotence to God, we envision an authoritarian figure who can choose to give love and mercy or not. The omnipotent God initially has all the power and then decides whether or not to show love and mercy. People who see God as omnipotent think God ordains the authority of political leaders, religious leaders, and others in positions of authority. Those leaders often follow suit and decide who they and society will love and who will be excluded. This has been the pattern from the beginning of Western history, from the “Doctrine of Discovery” to African slavery, race-based segregation, and religious exclusivism. The God of omnipotence loves selectively and approves of political and social structures that similarly decide who is “in” and who is “out.”

If we ascribe amipotence to God, we define God as lovingly interacting with all creation. If God loves me, my patients, and their families in the same way, we have more in common than not. With this view, people who are not in my religious or cultural group are not prospects for conversion to my group. I can ask about their culture and beliefs out of a genuine desire to learn about and from them. What I learn about Rosh Hashanah, Diwali, or Ramadan through those conversations helps me understand others and how they see God. This knowledge allows me to see God from a different perspective.

The amipotent God also lets me see my patients with new eyes. Amipotence says God is always present to me and experiences what I experience. As I examine a newborn baby in the hospital, God experiences me perceiving the baby. At the same time, God experiences the baby seeing me. God knows what each of us experiences and feels when we see each other. In at least this way, God is in the baby, and God is in me. This realization gives me a new way of seeing this baby. I still see the baby’s physical body and, beyond that, appreciate their connection to God, who presents them with a lifetime of moment-by-moment possibilities and aspirations for well-being. The amipotent God lets me love all.

As a result of loving relationships with my patients and their families, I share their joys over new births, potty-training victories, first days of school, sports, vacations, graduation, and career plans. I am surrounded by healthy, happy kids who constantly remind me of life’s joy. But not all of life is joy; it is also full of suffering. When children are involved in suffering, injustice is compounded. Children suffer from problems including abnormalities they are born with, injuries, illnesses, psychological trauma, the results of divorce, and the loss of a parent. The close relationships that I have with patients mean their suffering is, in at least a small way, my suffering. An amipotent view says God loves them through their pain. An omnipotent view asks if God is the cause of it.

About fifteen years ago, a nurse named Courtney pulled me aside during my rounds at the hospital. She explained that she was pregnant and asked if I would be her child’s pediatrician; I readily agreed. She went on to tell me the situation was more complicated than usual because her baby had spina bifida. Typically, during the fourth week of embryonic development, a structure called the neural tube closes in the area that will become the baby’s lower spine. In children with spina bifida, this closure doesn’t happen properly, creating multiple medical problems. Following Courtney’s son Carter’s birth, I walked with them through medical complications, repeated surgeries, and dozens of hospitalizations. Carter has faced weakness and paralysis of his leg muscles, frequent infections, surgical complications, and social challenges. Because of spina bifida, Carter and his family have suffered in ways others can’t imagine.

The omnipotent view of God leaves us wondering why an all-powerful God permits suffering, especially in children. The omnipotent view of God says the almighty God can do anything, including preventing Carter’s spina bifida. But God did not. Well-meaning people try to console families with phrases like, “God won’t give you more than you can handle” or “God made him just like God wanted him to be.” These comments are often confusing, fail to console, and can lead to abandonment of God. Regardless of attempted explanations, God seems unloving if God either causes or allows suffering, especially if the one suffering is a child.

The amipotent view of God tells us that God always acts alongside creation in aspirational love. God has aspirations for well-being in each moment and calls all creation toward those aspirations. But sometimes, creation doesn’t cooperate with God, leading to suffering. In Carter’s situation, a nutrient, chromosome, enzyme, or protein failed to respond to God’s call, his neural tube did not close, and the result was suffering. But the amipotent God did not cause this suffering.

The amipotent God isn’t to blame for Carter’s suffering but lovingly responds with new aspirational possibilities to help good things come from bad situations. Because of divine aspirations and creation’s cooperation, Carter and his family experience the fullness of a happy life. He and his brother sometimes get along and sometimes fight like siblings do. He loves playing wheelchair basketball and chasing the elusive bass in a fishing tournament. God cannot remove suffering single-handedly but always works out of love with creation toward overall well-being. An amipotent view of God is more consistent with my experience because it reveals God’s love despite suffering.

Another result of my relationships with families is that I am asked to help guide moms and dads in making decisions about parenting their children. They need help sorting through the advice they receive from many sources. Some of that advice is good, some is contradictory or confusing, and some is bad. Advice based on an omnipotent view of God often leads to an authoritarian parenting style, which is less healthy than a nurturant parenting style fostered by an amipotent view of God.

Parenting based on an omnipotent view of God emphasizes God as the ultimate authority and parents as agents of that authority in their families. These parents discipline their children to teach submission to parental and divine authority. They make plans for the family with little input from the children. And they see the Bible as the only guide parents need. The omnipotent God calls for authoritarian parents.

Alternatively, parenting from an amipotent view of God encourages parents to interact with their children somewhat like God interacts with creation. These parents want to guide their children toward overall well-being with aspirational and responsive love. They guide by empowering rather than controlling their children. They show love that is covenantal and unconditional. They aspire for their children to grow, explore, and live in a way that creates healthy relationships with the family, others, and God. They also respond to their children’s words and actions by receiving them in love and meeting them with the grace of new possibilities with affirmation, incorporation, or redirection.

A parenting style based on the amipotent God aligns with psychologically tested parenting models that help children grow into loving adults with healthy relationships. Understanding God as amipotent lets me be consistent with my view of God when I give parents advice. I can discuss infant feeding and nursing issues while considering the family’s overall well-being. I can advise a three-year-old’s parents to use the idea of “choice” as they teach freedom while living in the family community. I can also discuss the relationship between freedom and responsibility with young teens and their parents. This is a parenting style I can endorse because it is consistent with psychology and my experience.

Overall, seeing God as amipotent rather than omnipotent aligns better with my experience caring for patients and their families. The amipotent view of God lets me see God’s love displayed in human diversity, gives me a framework to see love despite suffering, and is a loving model of nurturant parenting. Seeing God’s power as the power of love makes a consistent connection between my everyday life as a pediatrician and my view of God.

Bio: Chris Hanson is a pediatrician in Memphis, Tennessee. He earned his M.D. degree from the University of Tennessee in 1993. He is working toward his Th.D. degree at Northwind Theological Seminary and is completing his dissertation on “Open and Relational Parenting.” He thanks Carter and his family for graciously granting permission to include his story in this essay.

OORD’S DRABBLE* RESPONSE

In this fine essay, Chris Hanson, a pediatrician, explores some implications of divine amipotence. I agree with Chris that the traditional view of an omnipotent God leans toward authoritarianism rather than nurture. The problem of suffering, especially regarding children, cannot be accounted for well by omnipotence. God’s amipotence models a love that nurtures, guides, and empowers rather than dominates or controls. Amipotence not only offers a better explanation for suffering but also, as Hanson describes, provides a better model for good parenting, whether divine or human. Look for Chris Hanson’s forthcoming book, what was his doctoral dissertation, on these issues.

For more on Oord’s reasons to reject an authoritative God, see this article.

* A drabble is an essay exactly 100 words in length.